Five years apart helped The Darkness see the light, according to guitarist Dan Hawkins.

The gleefully over-the-top British group was on fire during the early '00s, recalling days of rock 'n' roll yore with hits such as "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" and "Growing on Me." But while the band's split in 2006 was acrimonious, its reunion -- which resulted in last year's "Hot Cakes" album, has been harmonic.

"We've settled into a nice groove, really," says Hawkins, 36, who spent the interim leading a band called the Stone Gods, while his brother Justin Hawkins formed Hot Leg. "The first time around, we were sort of behaving like we were in Motley Crue, but we weren't really like that as people. That's how we got into a bit of trouble -- all of us.

"We were just normal people, really, and I think it went to all our respective heads. But you've got to go there, haven't you? What's the point of being in a rock 'n' roll band if you don't take it to 11? As long as you know that eventually you'll have to dial it back down."

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"Hot Cakes" will keep The Darkness on the road well into 2013. But Hawkins says a next album is already on the agenda, and he doesn't see another schism on the horizon.

"We feel like more of a team than we did before," the guitarist notes. "Our main concern, or our only concern, about the whole thing is we'd be perceived as one of those reunion bands doing a comeback tour, and it's not really like that.

"If you look at it, we basically skipped one album cycle. It was more like we messed up and missed an album, and now we're back on track. We feel like we made a really great album, and we feel like we're going to be making more of them down the road."